


If I Have Freedom in My Love

by Dardrea



Series: In the Bleak Mid-winter [3]
Category: The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy, Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: AU, Canon Gay Relationship, Everybody Lives, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Substance Abuse, They'll figure it out eventually, What Happens After Everybody Lives When People Are Still Pretty Messed Up, but not here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 06:32:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19145494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dardrea/pseuds/Dardrea
Summary: A few months have passed since Angels We Have Heard, and Stefen is feeling at loose ends, not sure what to do about the lifebond or with himself now that he's free from Leareth/Master Dark, so he follows Van to Haven to ask both of those things. Van has had waaay too much time to think, and accordingly, says about the worst things possible. This starts dark, really dark, with one of Stefen's nightmares. The rest is not as dark, even if it's not exactly fluffy. This installment is told entirely from Stefen's POV, no back and forth like I did in the first two parts, this needed to be too focused on Stef for that.(Do note also, this is part 3 in its series, my Van lives!, Stefen isn't taken to Haven but ends up a literal bought-and-sold slave of Leareth, and meets Van when he heads north to avenge Savil... fic. And it really won't make sense unless you've read the other 2.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning right off the bat for everything? Stefen is a child sex abuse survivor and drug addict trying to get clean and deal with his memories and figure out what feels like a very hopeless future. We begin with a Very Bad dream referencing Stefen's past abuse, skip to the first section break if you want to avoid that.

Stefen was cold…

_‘Course you are, you git, where’re your clothes?_

Didn’t matter. His arms wrapped around himself, on his knees, he was at his master’s feet, where he liked to be best in all the world.

_—no—not… that wasn’t true._

When a hand reached out and fisted in his hair, gods, it was _good_ , when it twisted until his scalp burned and his eyes teared, and jerked his head back, offering his throat like a sacrifice…

_—just fucking slice it open then, you godsdamned fucker, and stop playing—_

“My Stef.” It wasn’t his master’s voice.

His eyes shot open in horror—the Herald? What?

He laughed at Stefen’s shock, an unkind sound for such a “great man.” What did he want? He hadn’t fucked him when he’d had the chance—

And he laughed again, using his grip to pull Stefen to his feet, neck and back straining to keep up with the tearing at his scalp. “Are you saying I don’t still have the chance? I think you’re wrong.” He lightly tapped his index finger to Stefen’s lips, and trailed it down the center of his bared neck to his sternum.

_—I don’t owe you shit. Not if I say I don’t—_

The Herald caught him by the throat and kissed him, hard, taking, and it was like every time before, every time Dark—no, the Herald—no, _Dark_ had—

He whimpered. The memories were a sour, burning gall. The Herald wasn’t supposed to be like this. The Herald was a hero. He was a saint. So fucking moral a little shite like Stefen didn’t have a chance.

He had to respond, he had to pour himself out, helplessly, a thousand times over until there was nothing left of him and he was empty, soulless as one of Dark’s toys. The voice in his head said so, the part of him the Herald owned now, more even than Dark had owned him before.

He wept, and he couldn’t breathe with the tears, the damned sniveling, but he went soft in the Herald’s arms. Maybe if he didn’t fight it, maybe if he tried to be _nice_ , the Herald would be nice too? Or at least gentler? Maybe he wouldn’t hurt him so bad this time? His stomach heaved.

The Herald pulled his mouth from Stefen’s and set his teeth on his neck instead, giving him a single, sharp bite that he felt like he’d grabbed his privates and squeezed, drawing that same, shameful response. “Oh, sweet Stef, I’m going to be _very_ nice to you…” he promised. His voice bleeding into Dark’s. Bleeding into Renden’s. Tan’s. Into the voices of two disgusting old men, trundling north in an enclosed cart with a terrified child.

Stop whining and be nice, boy. Because we have something very nice for you.

_Fuck that, no! Not this time._

All he could manage was a whispered, childish, “Please,” and he truthfully couldn’t even say what he was pleading for, since it had never worked before anyway.

But in response the Herald caught his face and forced him to meet his eyes, silver, sharp and cold. How could Stefen have ever thought eyes that snowy-pale could look warm? He smiled, but it was Dark’s smile, so familiar, so full of terrible promises. Stefen shuddered, knowing how helpless he was. The Herald was in his head. The Herald had him.

“ _We_ have you,” the Herald corrected with that gentleness that never meant what it promised.

“Oh, Stef, my Stef. Did you really think I wouldn’t come back from anything, even death, to remind you where you belong?”

He wanted to scream but his whole body had gone stiff; the words, _that_ voice, was the caress of ice down his spine, the press of a blade down the length of his bare back. If it didn’t lay him open this time, it would the next time, or the time after that. He couldn’t breathe, the hands claiming his hips from behind while the Herald held his face and smiled _that_ smile, seemed to steal even that much of his will from him.

_It’s a dream! Dark didn’t survive, the Herald isn’t like this, it’s a dream!_

He felt the press of his master’s body at his back, so familiar, so possessive. The Herald in front of him, keeping him sandwiched between them, with warmth, with the promise of so much pleasure— _and far_ _too much pain_ —between their bodies.

_No. It’s not real! Stop this, you idiot._

But he _felt_ himself give in to it. The Herald claimed his mouth in another brutal kiss and Master Dark took the Herald’s place at Stefen’s neck and nuzzled and sucked and bit and neither would give him even enough space to freely draw in a breath.

_The fuck are you doing? Do you_ want _this? Are you that pathetic that this is what you_ need?

Both of them, his masters, wrapped their arms around him, holding him captive. Caged, in his head and outside it.

_No! He didn’t want this, not any of it!_

“But Stef!” Master Dark murmured, brushing hair away from his ear. “Damen’s been waiting for you to join us.”

The revulsion of that—Damen, back in Master Dark’s clutches when at the very least his death should have freed him from that awful possibility—was too overwhelming, too staggering to let what he’d known was a nightmare to continue.

 

* * *

 

He gasped; his lungs burning. Maybe he really had been holding his breath.

And no wonder he was cold, he’d kicked his blanket off and lay on his cot in just his smallclothes, because he’d washed the rest of his things and had stupidly thought he’d be okay letting them dry out while he was under a blanket.

Rather than reach for it he rolled from the cot into a crouch on the ground beside it and pressed his head to his knees while he fought to steady himself. His hands shook, he could feel the tremors through his whole body, and he knew the blanket wouldn’t have been enough now. The cold was inside him. He wasn’t sure it wouldn’t always be.

He raked his hands through his hair, wincing at the pull and then trying to disentangle himself in a near-panic. Some things didn’t really get easier, even for familiarity.

Mother Caenis had gently suggested he’d have an easier time reclaiming his senses from the dreamerie if he took himself out of the shack where his mother figure had killed herself with the same poison. As if the joke wasn’t on her for that; he hadn’t ever thought of Berte as his ‘mother.’

He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to banish images that weren’t there, and they didn’t have anything to do with Berte.

For that, and other reasons, he’d thought the priestess’ efforts with him were naïve at best, but since she’d offered a room in the temple as substitute, and for no coin and only a light bit of work around the place when he wasn’t singing, he’d taken her up. He’d needed something to busy himself anyway, gods knew he hadn’t had a new song in him since he’d made this stupid, self-righteous resolution to lay off the dreamerie.

He groaned and gathered the blanket up off the floor and tossed it at the far wall, but it unfolded in the air and didn’t even make it that small distance—and his room here was half the size the shack was.

He could feel too well how many hours there were between him and dawn.

His clothes were still damp, but he dragged them back on anyway, what’d it matter? If he didn’t start moving he might never and he wasn’t ready for that, most days. There was always work to be done around the temple, floors to sweep, holy relics to dust, oil lamps to refill, hells, those stupid candles to dip, though he hadn’t been much good at that and he doubted Mother Caenis would trust him at it again even if he’d had a mind to argue it with her. And he did not.

He slipped out of his room and despite his certainty that the cold of the early hours couldn’t be colder than the chill touch of his nightmares, he shivered in his wet clothes. Chores, something to busy his hands and distract his mind. He was going to fall over flat of exhaustion one day soon, but what was he supposed to do?

_He still had a stash and he knew where to get more._ There were nightmares on dreamerie sure, but not half as many as now he was trying to wean off it. At least then he’d be able to sleep. Oblivion was better than hell, wasn’t it?

He fought down an urge to let the door slam—again—knowing he’d wake the sisters just down the hall. More than sympathy for their rest, he’d rather avoid the pitying looks later. They’d come anyway, but at least if they couldn’t know _when_ he’d given up on sleep maybe they wouldn’t look as sad when they didn’t think he could see.

 

* * *

 

He sang for a while, bloody songs, battle hymns, songs of spurned loves and vengeful lovers. He was careful to keep anything extra out of it, but music was its own magic and screw it all anyway, if he felt like singing about worlds burning down and blades wet with blood, he was fucking allowed.

He quit before he was ready, but he could feel tensions rising with his own and he didn’t particularly want to start a riot. Though if all the gutless guttersnipes like him finally stood up for themselves and started tearing the high houses down—the Heralds would have to come in to settle things, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t that be a fine sight, watching him squash the all the poor buggers like he’d squashed Rendan’s men. Probably a lot of them deserved it just as a much. A service all around.

He sighed in annoyance with himself but put his lady back in her case with a tender hand he couldn’t have kept with anyone or anything else as the crowd and all their energy dispersed around him.

He shouldered the case and counted out his haul. _No dreamerie_ was an easier resolution to keep in the middle of the day, surrounded by noise and people and his music at his back and still in his ears. He was done being an owned man.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t have a drink or two though, and he sure wasn’t ready to head back to the temple and face Mother Caenis and her sisters.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t in the mood for ‘nice’ of any sort, so he kept to his side of the river—though he was living on the other side now he was holing up in a monk’s cell of all great, mad ironies. But he wasn’t a fool, he knew where his kind belonged and maybe he’d could clear his head if he spent some time remembering that.

There was a tavern, seediest in town, propped up between two of the big houses. It didn’t even have a name; some locals called it The Between, but no one thought that was its proper name, which was fine, since it wasn’t a proper place. You could buy dreamerie there, though he wouldn’t, and just about anything else, but he intended to stay clear of all but the most plebeian drinks the barkeep poured out from behind his station.

He was an old man, skeletally thin, with sharp eyes and a mouthful of big, yellow, wolfish teeth. Every other morning, and always on Sundays, he’d pay his respects at the temple, but no one ever saw him outside his bar other than that, for anything, and no one knew quite what his business at the temple was. No one Stefen had ever heard whispering about it actually bought it had anything to do with piety.

It was dark and close and dirty, too many tables and chairs in such a small place and the ground vibrated with the music bleeding over from the belowstairs taprooms on either side of it. People didn’t come here for music and other than those competing rhythms he could feel through his feet, there was only the drone of drinking and quiet conversation.

He nodded at the old man as he took a stool at the bar, careful how he set his arms on the sticky wood. If you didn’t ask for anything special, and quick about it, it was beer you got and that was fine. Couldn’t say much for the taste of it but it was better than his alternatives.

“H’aint seen you in a while.”

Stefen looked up in surprise. Keep—not his name, but Stefen didn’t know what it was, and like the name of his bar, it was good enough for most—Keep didn’t talk much. But for all his surprising overture, he’d already wandered away to the other end of the bar, wiping out mugs and stacking them.

Someone bumped his other side and he’d have turned on them with his knife out but—

“Oop! Sorry, mate. Lemme buy you a drink to make up?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. He rolled his eyes. Maybe someone’d stuck a sign to his back or something. He turned, and found a young, leering stranger, a noble, slumming and thinking he’d dressed to disguise his wealth, but Stefen could smell the money on him.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the bastard off, but… he wasn’t half-bad looking for an uppity, inbred toff. The gold in his hair as bright as the gold that was no doubt in his purse, and his eyes a pleasant enough green. He was a bit thick, a bit soft, but not unhandsome for it, and he had a nice face, even if his eyes were greedy.

Stefen was being damned good. He was keeping off the stuff, even though he was sure now that the effort was going to kill him. He deserved to have something to get him through the night, if it couldn’t be a good, restful sleep.

He tried to drum his fingers on the bar but it was too tacky and muffled the rhythm he’d been going for, but he smiled at the stupid toff anyway. “Nah,” he said, holding the smile and waiting until the other man’s eager grin fell. “But I’ll let you buy us a room.”


	2. Chapter 2

He let his new _friend_ pick the place, his ego soothed by the wondering looks he kept sneaking at him. In spite of his money he clearly hadn’t expected Stefen to take him up on his clumsy pass and it was almost, what, cute? –how flustered and eager he was when Stefen had gone along.

He had to have at least a handful of years on Stefen but he sure as fuck didn’t act like it. Honestly though, that was fine too. Appreciative was good—better than he’d had in a long time—and boyish fumbling sounded more his speed at the moment than a confidence that would only remind him of—

He wasn’t letting himself think about them.

Moments after disappearing to arrange the room and leading him up to it, his new friend was closing the door behind them. He started to say something but Stefen grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him.

Young m’lord went stiff as a virgin for an instant, and Stefen wondered if it was his first time kissing another man. He knew that on the other side of the river they had more time for worrying about what others got up to in their bedchambers, but to his relief it seemed only to have been nervousness. After a moment the young noble wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close, leaning into the kiss.

Not bad. He’d had better but he’d had worse. He should feel guilty, he was definitely about to spoil the young man for anyone who came after him. He smiled as he kissed him, and ran his hand up to tangle in the gold-colored hair, guiding him away from the door, closer to the bed.

_—where his master was already waiting, sprawled out and grinning—_

He tore his lips away from the confused youth and turned on the bed, breathing fast, panicked, hardly conscious of how he’d angled his body back behind the other man, instinctively trying to hide himself.

_Fuck._

Nicer than he needed to be, the noble let him hide, even putting himself a little more where Stefen had unthinkingly shoved him, between himself and the bed, his head twisting, his eyes wide and darting around the empty, mostly darkened room. “What is it?” he whispered.

Stefen stifled a groan and pressed back into his new friend’s chest, briefly hiding his head while he composed himself.

He was smiling when he looked up, and the noble swallowed heavily, giving a little jerk down where it mattered as confusion faded from his eyes. Stefen lightly stroked his jaw, back in control. He shook his head, but the noble’s gaze was glued to his mouth. He pouted a little, for effect, enjoying the helpless way the other man pressed against him. “Nothing. Sorry—nothing important. Just remembering something. But you! You’re much more interesting—what’s your name?”

M’lord hesitated too long. “Landebert,” he finally managed, obviously lying.

Fine with Stefen. Real names were messy and he wasn’t looking for anything real tonight. Just a distraction from the nightmares. He touched the pad of his thumb to Landebert’s lower lip. “I’m—”

“I know who you are,” the noble interrupted breathlessly. Eagerly. “You’re that minstrel. St—”

Stefen slid his palm over the noble’s mouth, put out. So much for a passing fancy. This wasn’t chance, he’d been hunted, and he knew his face hardened as he realized it.

‘Landebert’ shrank a little, realizing he’d overstepped but not grasping how.

He swallowed again, nervously, catching Stefen’s hand and turning the press of fingertips against his lips into a kiss, managing a certain courtliness in it that was impressive. Not likely a virgin, no.

For a moment Stefen waffled. Godsdammit, he needed something. He’d rather have had someone who didn’t know him; no names, no truth between them but what their bodies did together in a dark room in one of the big houses, strangers passing in shadows, nothing more but—fuck him, beggars took what they got when it was offered, he knew that well enough.

He took his hand away and replaced it with his mouth, and he was rougher this time, letting M’lord I-know-your-name-but-you-don’t-know-mine taste his displeasure. He teased, where before he’d given. Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. _Convince me,_ he said without words.

And with an eagerness that did convince him, at least to give him another try, Landebert did his reasonable best to do just that. His kisses were pleas, the touch of his trembling hands on Stefen’s shoulders were an offering of earnest desire. He didn’t grab at him, didn’t assume anything, despite how he’d come on in the tavern, and Stefen started to relax. To let himself be won.

The noble’s lips moved to his neck, tentative, soft, as he held him, close and tighter. “You’re beautiful!” the man whispered in hushed awe. “Gods, you’re amazing!”

Stefen accepted his lies with a sigh and arched his neck to offer more of it for that despairing worship. He wasn’t like Warin, a captain in his master’s guard and Stefen’s sometimes-lover. Warin had been much cleverer than this, and much less desperate, but he wasn’t—he wasn’t bad either.

His eyelids fluttered, the veil of his lashes further darkening the room. He didn’t need dreamerie tonight; he felt a flashing sense of triumph.

Through his lashes, by the door, he could see the Herald standing with that woebegone expression. The weight of the world on his shoulders and that inexpressible sadness in his eyes. The _disappointment_.

“What?” he muttered, jerking free from the other man’s arms, staring wide-eyed at the door, and then again around the empty room. No Herald. No master. Of course not. He didn’t even feel anything from that place in his head where the Herald lived now.

Still, his heart pounded and his struggle to catch his breath had nothing to do with Landebert.

Who had finally had enough.

“Are you _on_ something?” he muttered, frustrated, stumbling back in surprise when Stefen turned on him in a fury.

_How dared he?_ “And what if I am? Hey? What business is it of yours? You my mam, to get on me about _anything?_ ”

“No! I—I’m sorry!”

He shoved him, and spineless noble that he was, the man let him, falling back a step, which only pissed him off more. Instinct screamed at Stefen to go for the kill, when the enemy fell back you fucking cut them down, no mercy, or the man you’d spared today would have a dagger in your back tomorrow.

And the pretty boy noble could make trouble for Stefen that he wouldn’t have an easy way out of.

He glared, a moment too long, and the other man flinched and shrank away another step.

Pathetic. He couldn’t stay, he had to get out. His hand was on the door pull when the noble found his tongue.

“That’s it? You’re just leaving?”

“Looks like, don’t it?” The door was open, the empty hall before him.

“Was this all just a scam, between you and the… the proprietor to trick me out of the cost of the room?”

Stefen froze. Bad enough to be compared to a whore, when they hadn’t even met up in one of the big houses and it was Landebert who’d come looking for him. Bad enough to be accused of putting one on when _he_ was the one who’d chosen the place. The final straw wasn’t the faint whine, or the hint of sneering, it was the hushed, breathless excitement.

Whether they fucked or whether Stefen robbed him, it was a bit of fun and a story to tell to his pretty-boy friends on the other side of the river.

His vision closed in, red-tinged, as he reached for his money pouch and started tearing at the strings. He clawed through it, not looking, or even trying to feel, really, just scraping up what he could in curled fingers to fling at the floor at Landebert’s feet. Some coins fell and some rolled off, a little metallic ringing that put him in mind of chains. On the second thought he tossed the whole purse at him—he kept another, of course, hidden—not caring where it landed.

“There. That makes _you_ the whore, and a sorry one,” he said. “There’s a story for your friends.”

“But—”

That was more than enough for Stefen’s peace of mind. There was a buzzing in his ears and he was good at ignoring what he didn’t want to hear, it was a necessary skill for a street performer, so while he didn’t relax at all until he was back outside, open sky above, dirt under his boots, he couldn’t have said how long or how loud that lying, noble bastard might have called after him.

He inhaled deeply, the unpleasant, smoky air south of the river. It was cool, a gentle touch on skin that burned from the closeness of the big house, and the heat of the crowd, and his humiliation. He knew a place, quiet this time of night.

Up next to one of the walls, in a shadow where the moonlight never reached and smoke from nearby chimneys blocked the stars. The woman who lived in the house closest was deaf, and it was beside a grate in the wall that blocked much of the solid waste the river carried, putting up a foul smell that kept most people away. Not enough action for the street toughs, and too dark and cold and evil smelling for honest men.

Stefen pulled out his gittern and tuned it and started playing.

Away, he knew he’d overreacted. Landebert had been using him, but Stefen had planned to do the same, so what of it? It was galling that the noble had known who he was, it was an advantage he wouldn’t have given if he’d been in a position be more choosy, but why should he care so much about that? In songs sometimes names were things of power, but Stefen’s name was just a word and he had plenty of those.

He hissed, frustrated with himself. He still had his last stash of dreamerie. He could put an end to this foggy-headedness, these nightmares, sleeping and waking, anytime he wanted to. No one would know and what matter if they did? Mother Caenis and her sisters didn’t own him either, it was none of their damned business.

He struck an off-note in his distraction and it only made him angrier, a slowly spinning ball in the center of his chest, knocking his innards about in agitation.

_Stefen_ would know, was the thing. He didn’t care about the nuns, not even about the kids, _he’d_ know he was owned again. Still. Dreamerie had been one of Dark’s leashes on him and he knew himself to be owned as long as he was beholden to the shit just to get through a day. Even dead, Dark could still call him to heel as long as the dreamerie did.

And the Herald. This was his fault too. His fingers picked up their pace, flying over the strings with a fury.

Damned Herald, watching him from the door—even if he hadn’t been. Being a window for his master to peer back into his life, even though the man was dead. He didn’t have the right, either. He didn’t have the right to own him, from miles away, from a life away. From a palace, while Stefen languished in a slum. Street trash he may be, but that didn’t give the Herald the right to own him.

He glared out over his little corner of the wold, silvered in moonlight, wrapped in velvet darkness. All cats are gray in the dark, he’d heard said.

But Stefen knew the difference. Even the darkness could only hide so much. There was the reeking stink of the river to tell him this wasn’t a palace, however much the darkness hid of the filth, the ruin, and the despair.

At some point his song had gentled. Less fury, more of a plaintive call.

If he couldn’t find peace—well, he shouldn’t be the only one.


	3. Chapter 3

Stefen wasn’t impressed with Haven and he was almost sure it was more than just his dark mood.

It wasn’t so different from his own city, was the problem: the high houses, the merchant quarter, the slums. It was all so familiar. It was done on a grander scale, sure, and crawled with Heralds and fancy, blue-dressed guards, but there wasn’t much more to it than that from what he could tell.

The first Herald he’d seen had thrown him, stopped him cold, heart pounding, until he’d got ahold of himself and got it clear in his eyes and his head that _she_ wasn’t _him_. And that improbably white horse wasn’t the one he’d been looking for without knowing he was looking for her. Or without admitting it, anyway.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen other Heralds, there’d been plenty at the border, come for their hero, but he wasn’t used to seeing them on the same streets he was walking, that was strange, and every time, every damned time—

Didn’t do much to improve his mood.

The music came close to making up for it, though, since as well as guards and Heralds and all the usual city crowds, Haven, unlike Tides, was also crawling with musicians. Rust-colored youths, scarlet-clad adults, and their music wasn’t like anything he’d heard, except for the Herald and himself.

To know that there were so many gathered here because there was a fucking school that turned them out—it made him sick with a bitter longing that was worse than his confused feelings for the Herald, because there was no confusion in this desire.

In another life he’d have gone to that school, he’d have belonged in that school, surrounded by that music, hearing it, living in it. And Stefen, who never bemoaned what wasn’t and couldn’t be, felt such a sense of unfairness.

Nothing in his life had ever been fair, he’d never have expected it, but this, dammit, _this wasn’t fair!_

He had his gittern, of course, he didn’t ever not have it, but fortunately he’d earned a bit before he’d left for Haven, because he doubted he could have drawn in a copper penny with so many gifted musicians around him offering their songs for free. Not just musicians, _bards_ is what they were. He’d heard the word before but he’d never understood it, what it really meant, what it encompassed.

He’d come looking for the Herald, following a nebulous plan for some sort of confrontation, but the music had snared and distracted him.

He wandered in a daze, feeling drugged, but it was the music that was doing it to him. Haven was a city, just another stinking pit packed with too many bodies, but the music, the _bards_ —

It didn’t take him long to figure out where they hung out most often, and the young ones in their rust-colored school clothes were the easiest to track. Carefree, wild, with the joyous nose for trouble he associated with young nobles, but he could tell they weren’t that, or at least many of them weren’t. They were loud and foolish, given to bursting into song unbidden, to competing with each other over playing. That easy comraderie hurt him almost as much as the music that surrounded and followed them. They were all together in it, they shared it. He’d never had anything like that. He’d never dreamed it was possible.

 Aside from playing with the Herald, and he wasn’t naïve, that had been a type of courting, in its twisty way. What these lucky little shites shared was something else altogether.

It was his sixth night in Haven, his third in a particular tavern where one group he’d taken to shadowing was out again. He fancied that chubby, brown-haired girl’s songs. She had a sweet voice and a gentle air, for all her quick smiles and clever, darting eyes. He just wished she’d spend less time ogling the other brunette in her group and more time singing.

“Thinking of showing up at the collegium? Seeing if they’ll take you on?”

Stefen turned on the man who’d spoken, annoyed he hadn’t caught his approach. He took him in with a glance. Trouble, he thought, though the man didn’t particularly look it. He’d learned to trust his instincts, especially when his other senses didn’t agree with them. A man who could look that…bland, ageless, colorless, harmless despite his tall, heavy build, utterly unremarkable, but move quiet enough to come up on Stefen unawares, with him so twitchy—

Aye, trouble.

He shrugged.

The man smiled, kindly, and Stefen shifted a little away from him, even while he joined him at his table. Another attempt at picking him up? He knew he had a pretty enough face, he’d skated on his own looks often enough, why not? He didn’t think that was likely the other man’s scam though, even if it might be what had caught his attention.

The man sighed as he sat, like it was good to rest, and he looked at the group of young bard trainees Stefen had been listening to, but carefully not staring at. Stefen fought the sudden need to put him off before they noticed—and noticed Stefen sitting there, again.

Gods, he hadn’t felt so shy since he’d been a child in his first blush with Dark—

He stiffened and he felt his chin go up, even without him meaning it. He glared at the stranger. “Wasn’t looking for a friend,” he said, plain. _Sure not one like you._

“Weren’t you?” the other man asked, and his gaze shifted knowingly back towards the trainees who’d finally started singing again.

A guard. Or a guardian at least, he was suddenly sure of it. He’d been too obvious in shadowing the bards for this past near-week, addlepated with the music, he’d been caught at it and someone had come—or been sent—to check that his interest was on the level.

Well fuck.

“Just passing through,” he said, grabbing his gittern and getting to his feet. This whole thing, coming to Haven in the first place, had been a stupid idea.

“Look like you’ve come a ways, carrying that, and you aren’t even going to make your plea at the collegium door? Not many of the young ones who get this far are so shy.” There was nothing accusatory in his tone. Just the slim, cold needle of condescension.

And Stefen knew, he _knew_ it for a trick. If he hadn’t been so heartsore with longing, so twisted up with dreamerie nightmares, so messed up inside and not even sure what was him anymore and what was Dark and what was dreamerie and what was the damned Herald—

But he was, and if there was anything he did know inside his head and heart, that was his and his only, it was the music. Glaring, he set his case on the table, carelessly nudging aside the half-full cup he’d been nursing for nearly two hours.

He could have pulled her out, but he wasn’t putting that much time into this madness. Behind him the bard trainees were still singing, a chorus about a lover’s trial to prove her worth to a stupid, roving man who’d left her to make his fortune.

Staring straight into the stranger’s eyes he joined them—irritation and yes, jealousy and longing, giving force to his voice.

It wasn’t strange, he’d heard it happen dozens of times since he’d come, since he’d started looking for the places where the bards could be found, how they’d sing together like exotic birds, wandering from place to place, randomly joining in new songs, new song-games, flitting from one to another like it was nothing, connected, as he was not.

But for a moment—they sang, and he sang with them, harmony and melody and bliss. The stranger’s eyes widened in surprise and the warm bloom of triumph unfurled in Stefen’s chest. He might not have a place with them, but his song was true too. The bard trainees trailed off, but he kept going because he could. _How could he leave? But since he did I’ll have no other. If he be dead I’ll mourn until I die—if he be faithless, still I’ll wait._

Even after the man who tormented her with word of her lover’s death was revealed as her love himself, testing her, the lines repeated: if he be dead, if he be faithless—

_I’ll mourn. I’ll die. I’ll wait._

The last note hung, quivering with grief, betrayal, and resolution, fading only slowly in the silence that had fallen on the tavern.

He’d finished it alone. He was used to that.

He shouldered his gittern and made a dash for the exit. It took the stranger too long to catch up. Haven was too much like Tides; Stefen knew how to hide. By the time the stranger reached the door Stefen was gone.

Alone was safer. Away from even the lowest places where the most adventurous of the bards would go, in the dark, foul-smelling streets and alleys, ramshackle taverns, and strangely quiet public houses, this was Stefen’s place; the desperate, dangerous, and guarded, these were Stefen’s people.

He bypassed the main room of the public house where he was staying and headed up to his private room by way of a rickety wooden stair that creaked ominously even under his unimpressive weight. He was paying extra to keep the tiny attic room to himself but he wouldn’t have it to pay in another few days. Shouldn’t need it. What he should do was head back to Tides.

He threw himself at the bed, ignoring the cloud of dust that rose, or trying to, until it made him sneeze. That hadn’t been at all what he’d wanted. But really, what had he expected? That when he finally got up the spine to join in a song he’d be welcomed? Like in an old story about one long lost, at last returned to their own? A prince or a waterbird, he was neither.

He knew exactly where he was, and it was exactly where he belonged—except in another version of it, a bit south and a bit smaller and a lot quieter.

He rolled over, cradling his gittern case in his arms like a lover, and pressed his forehead to it. He should leave now. No more pretenses, no more clinging to vague, vain hopes. No more dreaming about things that were out of his reach.

He shouldn’t have laid down. He’d gotten so used to being exhausted he hadn’t realized how close he was to passing out again.

 

* * *

 

Dark was there, of course he was, and Rendan and Tan, the two old men who’d brought him south, dozens of them, there were dozens, all the people in his life who’d taken from him what he hadn’t offered.

Rendan’s men and Dark’s. A fucking party, and they all had Stefen in common. And playing for them, in the back, that troupe of bard trainees from the tavern, laughing and singing, together, paying no mind to the crowd of fiends making merry to their damned songs.

There was a burning in the center of his chest, a dark fire churning, consuming him from within. It would swallow him whole, complete, if he couldn’t find a vent for it. But somehow he knew, somehow… he stretched his hand out, palm raised, feeling that hungry flame course along his arm, from his chest to his palm. It kindled visibly there, curling like a small, ravenous beast, begging to be loosed. He’d seen the Herald do this in Rendan’s hold. He knew what to do.

With a scream, the roar of the fire that was consuming him, he pitched that tongue of flame at the celebrants and watched it explode in smoke and light. He heard the screaming and exulted. He threw another, and another. He could hardly see through the smoke but he could still hear their terror, their anguish, and it only fed the fire that burned in him.

_Yes. And yes. And yes!_

Shapes were silhouetted in the smoke and flame, not just men, but women. The bards? The chubby dark-haired girl and her dark-haired friend? More than that, more women than that, and smaller shapes too… children?

_Wait—_

Dogs, or something like them, but elongate and wrong even in silhouette, and prowling through the chaos, not trapped by it. Hate given form and flesh and loosed on the world. Hunting.

_No._

A white shape, larger, graceful, the most beautiful and wonderful creature he’d ever seen—the Herald’s Companion, not her…

_No!_

Someone grabbed him by the wrist, the one that was still extended in denial, pulling him away so he didn’t have to see what those dog-things did to her.

The Herald, as he’d first seen him, in ragged whites, snow dusted, looking weary and worn, tired, near defeated, but with a core of strength that in the end even Dark hadn’t been able to break.

“Please,” he begged, his voice cracking. _Fix this. Stop this. Make it better. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t understand what I was doing._

Vanyel shook his head, a look of profound sadness in his eyes. A look of betrayal. “You’re not who I thought you were. How could I forgive this? How could anyone?”

“Please?” he could only whisper again, smoke stinging his eyes and making his vision muddy, blurring with his tears.

But Van dropped his wrist like it was something too fouled to hold, and walked into the churning chaos, the red-tinged smoke—and screamed. Lightning illuminated the smoke, lighting the carnage, bodies, so many bodies reduced to bloody ruin, to scorch marks and bloodstains.

What had he done? This wasn’t what he’d meant, not like this.

“Vanyel!” he screamed, rushing forward. If he couldn’t save him he’d die with him. If Van had to die to undo the mess Stefen’d made at least he wouldn’t let him die alone. But when he ran forward he came against an invisible barrier that kept him from taking his part in this play he’d written. He beat his fists against air turned solid and screamed until he was hoarse. Out of his reach, the dogs-that-weren’t circled Vanyel, closing in, eyes glowing sulfurous yellow even through the haze.

“Van! No! Van—please!” But if he even heard him, he couldn’t tell. The dogs—the damned dogs, with mouths like snakes and fangs like daggers—

 

* * *

 

The waking world was quiet as a tomb, even with screams and agonized cries echoing in his head. His eyes stung with tears, he could taste the smoke, but it was dark in the small room, so he knew it was still early.

Fucking dreamerie. He slammed his arm out against the bed and coughed in the resurgent cloud of dust, but flavored by his dream, it tasted like ash. He’d kick that shit for good, didn’t matter how many nightmares it tossed at him. Fuck if he’d give in. He wouldn’t, not matter what. He swiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist and rolled up to sit on the edge of the bed, one hand on his gittern case. 

He wouldn’t look up yet. He wouldn’t look around for the yellow eyes he could feel watching him. Wyrsa. Dark had kept a pack and they’d always scared him shitless but this was the first time he’d dreamed of them. They made excellent nightmare beasts.

He shuddered. Yellow eyes and blood. He could see it so vividly. He could smell it; the bright metallic sting of blood, and the musty, reptile stench of those abominations.

He stood up and walked to the small, uncovered window that looked out over the street. A boy was sitting out on a rusted barrel, idly tossing something Stefen couldn’t see between his hands.

He raked a hand through his hair and checked his purse, tallying, before he walked down to meet the kid and see if he was still willing to get a message to the palace.

 

* * *

 

His hollow belly drove him into looking for somewhere he could fill it. He’d’ve been fine with drinking his dinner but it wouldn’t help with the nightmares. Playing did, a little, but he didn’t dare do that away from his room now, or risk that stranger catching him again. Something told him the man wouldn’t think he was done with him.

It hadn’t taken him long to recognize that in that, if in that only, the slums here were different than the ones he was used to: there were guards here, and Heralds, out of their pretty blue and white, trying to pass for street trash like him. Stefen could smell them the way he could smell the nobles when they were slumming it, though he didn’t need to ask one to know they were here for a different reason. Spies, likely, ears to the ground. It was clever. They were clever. He was even willing to concede there were probably a few he’d passed and hadn’t sniffed out.

Made him think of Herald Vanyel and his rough disguise when he’d come visiting in Tides. Valdir, he’d called himself. Stefen hadn’t thought much then about what it meant, but the disguise had fit.

Anyway, he ducked into a particularly grim drinking parlor where he hadn’t caught wind of anyone who seemed they might be more than they looked, and grabbed a cheap meal of old pottage, big portions, if there wasn’t much otherwise to recommend it, but it would do him.

The largest table in the corner was host to a rowdy bunch, throwing dice in a game Stefen recognized from the bandit holds. If he closed his eyes it was almost like he was back there. His eyes burned with the effort of keeping them open.

He’d forced himself to stay, to not wolf even his second bowl of pottage, but his shoulders dropped a little as soon as he was out and it was suddenly easier to breathe.


	4. Chapter 4

He’d picked out a comfortable corner, a shadowed recess between buildings. It wasn’t deep enough to be an alley, a dead end rather; not a good place to get caught but good enough to make sure no one could get at his back while he waited. A nice enough spot he was ready to face competition for it at some point, even. He knew that as valuable as a good street corner was to a street performer a good shadowy corner could be to a street tough.

Maybe someone would have come along and booted him out eventually, or maybe it was slim pickings this part of town—likely, really—but he wasn’t waiting too long before his quarry came scurrying along the street, ragged boots, threadbare cloak, that stupid hat.

The closer he came the tighter Stefen’s chest got. The message the boy’d carried had said to meet outside the building where Stefen was rooming but he hadn’t liked the lay of the land there, once he’d looked closer, and he’d figured it would easy enough to waylay him. Seeing how he’d come, he only found himself regretting this whole Haven trip even more.

This was the only version of the Herald that Stefen could have. The only person he _could_ be where their lives touched—the broken minstrel, down on his luck, not even as good off as Stefen was, and so fucking downtrodden it made him mad and made his mouth work against the remembered taste of ash and bloody smoke.

It would have been enough if it was all there was: Stefen and Valdir could have been something, the two of them huddled together against an indifferent world. How it could have worked, he wasn’t sure, but he was certain there could have been a life where—

_Didn’t matter._ Valdir wasn’t real and Herald Vanyel couldn’t ever be real to him.

He held his tongue and slipped further into the darkness behind him, leaning against one of the walls, pressing into the chill of the stone to calm his racing heart and cool his skin. He’d been stupid to come. What had he thought he’d find?

A fuck, in the shadows, so he couldn’t see Dark’s face over him with a saint’s eyes staring out from it? He’d have been better off to keep trying closer to home, he’d’ve managed it eventually. One fuck-up with a noble hadn’t been worth traveling all the way to this place.

He stiffened, palming one of his blades when he realized he wasn’t alone.

He’d chosen the dead end, thinking it would protect his back, but that only worked as long as he kept his attention on the entrance. Idiot.

But somehow he wasn’t surprised when the other man cleared his throat and it was Vanyel-Valdir.

He wished it had been a guard or a cut-purse, he’d’ve had an easier time dealing with either.

“Are you all right?”

_No._ A grating laugh caught in his throat.

“Well enough,” he said, knowing it wasn’t even a good lie. His voice betrayed him, surely, but it hadn’t been believable anyway.

The Herald took a step towards him.

He stiffened. _Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me,_ he thought, but couldn’t find the voice to say it.

Maybe he was eavesdropping, or maybe he just wasn’t a complete twat, but the Herald stopped, still well out of arm’s reach, and Stefen’s breath steadied a bit.

He shut his eyes and sighed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Hating the word even as he said it, and not sure himself all that he meant it to encompass. He was definitely sorry at least for summoning the Herald out here and then acting like such a fool.

“Are you… sick?” Even cautiously probing, there was music in that dark, velvet voice. Sweeter than that in the young bards-to-be. Sweeter than in his dreams of him.

He sighed again. “M’fine. Fucking fantastic—I’m kicking the dreamerie. Near a month off it, fancy that? It fights back. Makes me stupid sometimes. Weak.” He hated that word even more. He hated the taste of it, and he wasn’t sure why he’d said any of that, anyway. What did he expect, a clap on the back? Fuck, the saintly Herald, M’lord High and Mighty, he just might try it. Better he didn’t—Stefen’d cut his hand off at the wrist. He was letting himself get wound up again. _Relax, you fucker._

The Herald didn’t say anything, or move any closer. Maybe he didn’t believe him.

“Do you want to go somewhere? To talk?”

Stefen smirked. Had to toss that in, right? Mighta sounded like he was trying to pick up a street rat, otherwise. He shrugged, not knowing if the Herald could see it in the darkness. “I got a room. Paying extra for privacy.”

A long, heavy hesitation. Was he really going to say ‘no?’ Somehow that hadn’t occurred to him. He’d imagined he might ignore his message, but never that he’d back off if they met up. Something in him twisted up tight and he was glad of the darkness, because his eyes burned like he was still trying to keep from blinking.

A thousand years passed. If his throat hadn’t been closed tight he’d have tried to back-pedal. They could go to the dive where’d he gotten the pottage that was churning through his guts now. They could find a tavern on the better side of town. Hells, they could find a local temple of whoever he wanted and sit in the back pews. What would never have occurred to him was—

“Would you like to see where I stay?”

It took him a moment to make sense of the words, over the rejections ringing loud in his head, and even then he didn’t think he’d understood them. Where _he_ stayed? Didn’t he live at the palace? Didn’t he live with all the pious, fancy Heralds behind the big walls at the center of the city? He didn’t mean for Stefen to go with him there, did he? Not _Stefen_ , not knowing what he was.

“I guess,” he managed, his voice strangled, young. He cleared his throat. _Where I stay_ , not _where I live_ , he’d said. Maybe not his place at the palace, then. Maybe he had rooms out in the city somewhere. Maybe Valdir had a place here, more suiting his—and Stefen’s—station.

He was glad of the darkness over him, but he wished he could see the Herald’s face.

“I, uh—I have a small collection of musical instruments. Unusual ones I’ve come across in my travels. You might enjoy looking them over.”

Any other man, Stefen would have known that for a come-on. With the Herald… gods, he probably did just mean he had a couple of old lutes on a shelf in a corner. He tried to laugh at himself but it came out sounding like a wheeze.

“Lead on, then,” he finally managed, waving his arm, fairly sure that much movement would be visible. “I’m always up for music.” It was perhaps the most honest thing he’d ever said and it still made him wince, thinking of earlier that evening, when the young bards’ guardian had cornered him.

He kept a light foot and wary eye out, not eager to run into that one again, with the Herald or alone.

 

* * *

 

Since he’d thought of it he’d steeled himself for a little hidey-hole, comfortable, his sort of place. It probably wouldn’t be far from where Stefen himself was rooming, in a neighborhood where men like Valdir and him could pass without comment.

Instead they cut a winding route through winding streets, moving ever closer to the heart of the city, the inner walls, and the palace itself. Still he denied it, looking for the turn off he was sure had to be just ahead.

Through the noble district he clung a little closer. He could come up with something if he needed to, but he’d hope Valdir already had an excuse for a pair no better than them to be skulking through those streets at night. And ideally another for walking right up to a guard post in the very inner wall. He had to be mad. Or turning Stefen in.

But even not trusting his guide, Stefen followed, stupidly, hopelessly.

The gates in the wall were closed for the night, a big iron grate lowered a bit further along. It didn’t look like there was any other way through, and apparently the Herald meant for them to go through.

Valdir-Vanyel was clearly known. As soon as he presented himself they were let inside, no one even questioned them, they were just waved on through a strategically defensible room and hallway and into another room of heavily armed guards. Again, at seeing Vanyel, no questions were asked, not even for Stefen’s sake, though he kept his head up and his hands loose and visible anyway.

He didn’t breathe until they were out on the other side, when he had to stop for a moment, light-headed.

Van stopped for him and he could feel his curious gaze. Stefen could tell it was on the tip of his tongue to ask something stupid.

He shook himself, a tiny gesture that tossed his hair, and pasted on a grin. They were inside the inner walls. They were at the palace. He’d once promised himself he wouldn’t follow another pretty face—and the same damned face, at that—into another situation like this. Wasn’t he just begging for trouble.

“Sorry, smell of the guards always puts me off,” he joked, badly. They’d first met at a guard post, and it hadn’t gone well there, either.

Van watched him a moment longer, waiting for something, but then he smiled slightly, an expression that didn’t reach his eyes, shiny though they were in the torchlight, and gestured again for him to follow.

Valdemar’s palace was a compound, not a single structure, which Stefen had known, but he still hadn’t been prepared for how sprawling it was, how practically built, so different from Dark’s ornate, fairy story castle. Some of the buildings wouldn’t even be part of the palace at all, they were part of the school, the _collegiums_ , where trainees for the Heralds, bards, and guard corps took classes with young nobles and courtiers.

In one of the buildings, one of the doors they were passing would be the one the young bards’ guardian had taunted him about. The door where hopefuls could present themselves to try to get into the bardic collegium, if that hadn’t all been talk and that was really how it worked. He wanted to ask—just for curiosity, he knew he was too old and too rough to get even a listen, but he was afraid the Herald would take it the wrong way and think he was angling.

He held his tongue and in a moment they were in front of a fairly modest door, by Stefen’s jaded standards, having spent so much time suffocated in Dark’s pomp and pretense. It was in a wing set aside for the Heralds, maybe, not part of what looked like it would have been the palace proper. There was something decidedly spare and martial to the set up of this building and the long row of doors they’d passed before finding this one, off a bit and tucked around a zigzagging corner and a long colonnade. It was private, at least.

The Herald opened the door and Stefen held his breath again, not knowing what to expect and not sure how he felt on finding nothing more than a well lived-in, if simple suite.

Stefen’s first set of rooms in Dark’s castle had been far grander, but had never come close to feeling as comfortable. He stepped inside, a little stiff-legged, not entirely over the feeling that he was walking into something he shouldn’t.

The room was dark but there were windows, glass covered windows, with the curtains open to the moon and starlight, if not their chill. A bed, an armoire, a chest. On the far side of the room a desk, a chair, a fireplace—a pair of shelves on the wall, as he’d imagined, laden with instruments. More than just old lutes though, he could tell by the variety of shapes, even in the relative dark.

He turned and watched the Herald close the door behind them, taking too long at it, hardly making a sound. He was much quicker lighting a pair of lamps, keeping close to the wall as he moved around his own room, keeping distance between himself and where Stefen stood, in the middle. He was making such an effort at not looking at him, Stefen fancied he could feel it more than he might have felt his gaze, if he’d just glance up a bit. It would have been in character for poor Valdir but Stefen knew they’d left him at the other side of the inner wall so this was… cute, he decided. _He_ made _the Herald_ nervous?

“Ah… welcome,” Van finally said, and Stefen felt his lips twitch.

“Nice,” he said. “Not what I’d’ve expected of a noble’s son, though.” Or of Valdemar’s greatest Herald-hero and last Herald-Mage. He didn’t mention the rest, Van was uncomfortable enough.

Vanyel chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s more than enough for my needs. And my father’s only a minor noble.

If he liked, but Stefen would lay odds he could have claimed a better room than this if he’d had a mind, even if he wasn’t all that he’d become. Something of an ascetic, Vanyel. That or he just didn’t have the time and energy to invest in where he was staying. That was how he’d put it after all, _where I stay_.

Stefen wondered what he did consider home, then. His family keep? A barracks on the Karsite border? Or the back of that pretty white horse that was tied to his head more than Stefen was.

Van cleared his throat and Stefen realized he’d been staring, like he could figure out what made the other man tick if he just watched him long enough.

“My collection! Here—”

Such a hearty tone, so relieved at having remembered his original gambit, that Stefen grinned away his own embarrassment, losing it in his amusement over Vanyel’s. He lost more than his sense of embarrassment when he trailed after him and got a better look at the treasure trove the Herald had so casually displayed in his humble little room.

It was mostly all familiar, strings and some woodwinds, a few small drums, though some of the instruments were less common and there were a few things he’d never seen or heard tell of before. Different materials in some cases, different numbers of strings or holes, bigger, smaller, or oddly shaped. A lute strung with incredibly fine metal wires caught his attention for a moment, grabbing him by the ear with the clarity of its sound. There was a bone flute he recognized from the caribou herders beyond the ice wall mountains, and a small hide drum, and he could only imagine that many of the odder things came from places as far flung.

Somehow, he ended up cross-legged on the floor in a circle of precious instruments, the Herald showing them off one at a time as he pulled them from the shelf, as if he was a merchant and Stefen a discerning patron.

Enraptured at every demonstration, heart-singing at the surprise and admiration evident at each instrument he could take up, showing off his own skill even with things he’d never held before.

It scared him, to feel so much, so quick, and with a man so far above him, but the music wouldn’t let him pull away.

Only when every instrument was down, laid out carefully across plush but aged carpet and flagstone, did Vanyel sit as well, as though it was nothing to him to be on the floor of his own room. Their play continued: friendly laughter over missed, off notes on the stranger instruments, shy, rapt smiles at the victory of clever tunes and trilling scales. Harmonies, with things that had never been made for it.

It was everything Stefen’d ached for, watching the gleeful troupes of bardic trainees singing their ways through the city. Camaraderie, understanding, like when he’d tricked him into playing at The Dawn’s Eyes, except this was just for the two of them.

—until the knock at the door.

Stefen glanced at the time candle. They’d been in the Herald’s room for a bit over two hours, which made it something like one in the morning. Too late for normal visitors. Were they making too much noise?

The Herald shot him a look, the laughter fleeing his expression, something like fear replacing it, and Stefen’s chin went up. It wasn’t fear of ambush or attack—not unreasonable concerns in the middle of night for any point in _his_ life—it was fear of being caught at such an hour with a common street tough in his room.

The Herald tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace, a reflexive tug at the corners of his mouth, and he abandoned it with a shrug, leaving Stefen sitting where he was while he went to cautiously open the door.

He tried to keep it mostly closed, seeming to know who was on the other side before he’d opened it, keeping his guest from Stefen’s view and Stefen from theirs. After only the briefest exchange, the door pushed open and the Herald ‘allowed’ it, staggering back to admit a handsome young man who strode into the room as if he had often done so before.


	5. Chapter 5

He looked to be about Stefen’s age, a little younger perhaps, but that could have been the comfortable life he’d clearly lived that made him seem so. Brunet, his hair grown out and pulled back in a careless tail, square-faced, light-eyed, broad shoulders but a trim frame. Stefen might have been eying him himself in different circumstances.

“You _are_ awake!” His voice was low, more than pleasant. Another damned bard, but a full one for his youth, dressed in scarlet, not in rust. “Gods.” He rolled his shoulders, letting a large travel pack slide down and then swinging it free and tossing it at the Herald’s bed. “I just got back. I’m dead tired, but wound up like you would not believe—or maybe you would. You used to talk about the feeling, glad to be back but itching to be back out. I know it’s different but—ah, the things I’ve seen. The ideas! This was so much better than—”

He’d finally caught sight of Stefen, sitting on the floor in the corner, surrounded by instruments, and he went absolutely still, mouth falling open—and finally quiet—in his surprise. After a moment he managed a blink and his gaze flicked to the Herald and back to Stefen.

Perhaps Stefen had misjudged the Herald. Perhaps he collected handsome young musicians the way Dark had collected his mindless human dolls. Perhaps that was why the guards had hardly spared him a glance once they’d seen who he was with.

Confusingly, the youth suddenly grinned, an expression that bordered on the manic. He practically vibrated with what Stefen would have called _glee_ , if he hadn’t found that so unlikely. “You’re Stefen, aren’t you?”

The Herald had told his lover about him? What was this?

The boy quickly crossed the room to him, ignoring, or oblivious to, his discomfort.

“Checking out the collection? Uncle Van hardly lets anyone touch them, you know. I’ve lost friendships because word got out that he was hoarding some of the most beautiful and unusual instruments in Haven and I had to tell my friends that I couldn’t _possibly_ get them in to look them over—”

“And how did word ‘get out,’ you scapegrace?” Vanyel muttered. Not quite defeated, he had perked up in his annoyance.

“You’re Medren,” Stefen said, understanding. They didn’t look a thing like each other. He’d never have taken them for related.

For some reason the bard looked unaccountably pleased. “I am. And you’re the one who wrote that song.”

“Medren—”

Stefen winced. Van could have left for all the attention his nephew was paying him now.

“You are, aren’t you?”

“I’ve written a song or two—”

“Hah. No surprise there, that obviously wasn’t an amateur’s first go.” He didn’t seem to need confirmation past that. He’d sunk into a cross-legged position, radiating that energy Stefen didn’t understand from just across a small wall of precious instruments. Idly he grabbed a little silver flute and blew a swift, cheerful tune as bright and sweet as morning birdsong.

Stefen shot a pleading look at Vanyel, utterly lost.

Van caught the look but it only made him smile in defeat and shake his head. “What if I told you now wasn’t a good time?” he asked, but his tone made the words themselves moot and Stefen suspected he wasn’t unhappy for the interruption.

Medren stopped playing and shot his uncle an arch grin. “I’d say you shouldn’t have let me in, then.”

“I didn’t _let_ you in.”

“Say!” Medren said, turning back to Stefen. “Do you know this one?” He started playing again, a simple enough tune. It was a trick question; Stefen knew no less than four songs set to that melody and at least three of them were common enough that the young bard would certainly know them too.

He recognized the game from the taverns of Haven. The challenge was for the singer to pick out which of the songs the first musician had in mind, just from whichever little flourishes they were granted. It could go from there, seamlessly melding the different songs if it could be done, thematically, rhythmically, with extra prestige if the singer could slip back and forth between their selections more than once and have a song that, at least in the moment, seemed to make sense.

Stefen stole another glance at Vanyel, who was sitting down where he’d been before his nephew had come in. There was more distance between the two of them than between Stefen and Medren, but Van’s expression was only amused, giving nothing else away.

His nephew didn’t seem mean-spirited, even to Stefen’s suspicious mind. Vanyel was, if anything, even more relaxed for having him here.

And Stefen… well, Stefen had his pride.

He was almost sure he knew Medren’s song. The bard made no visible reaction when Stefen started singing, continuing to play until he reached the end of the song and Stefen finished a poignant but pastiche verse about an empty cradle in the stars and a dog that wouldn’t bark and horse that wouldn’t run and the picked-clean bones of a red-finned fish.

Medren laughed when he stopped playing but his eyes were lit with admiration and it lent sincerity to Stefen’s answering grin. “Nice!” he said. “I’d never heard the bits about the bird-man.”

Stefen shrugged, pleased again. “I heard it up north. Though it wasn’t local. Don’t know where it actually comes from.”

“Karse,” Vanyel said. “The translation of a folk song they used to sing in the Morningray Mountains. You’d hear it echoing through the little valleys, the shepherds singing it while they gathered their sheep. I’ve never heard the translation. Refugees would have brought it north, I’d guess.”

Stefen’s heart sank. Van wouldn’t have good memories of Karse, there were dozens of songs and stories about him fighting there, and Stefen cursed himself for stumbling into that. But the Herald’s expression, though far away, was peaceful enough, pensive rather than haunted or angry.

He took a shallow, relieved breath.

“Your turn!” he announced, a wide, impish smile pasted to his face, performing already before he’d picked up one of the odder instruments, the short, silver-strung lute. He’d felt a certain rapport when he and Van had been playing around before his nephew had joined them and he thought he had her figured out.

He could have started easy, for himself and for Medren, but gods knew, Stefen wasn’t an easy sort.

It was a tune not traditionally played on strings, and all three of the accompanying songs he knew were from beyond the northern border, two of them from beyond the mountains entirely, though the one he had in mind was the one he’d heard more than once right at Valdemar’s edge, in holdings and even at that guard post.

Only a little to his surprise, Medren picked it up right away and started singing the words, cliché enough, about a pair of lovers and a forbidden, star-crossed love.

Van took the next song, and it continued from there.

Medren was… fun. Easy and bright and chatty. Flirty, in an amusing, casual way. Never too serious, in part because he wasn’t shy that he thought there was something going on between Stefen and his uncle—and didn’t seem at all bothered by it, despite Stefen’s low station?—but also probably because if he turned out to have any physical interest in men, Stefen would eat his lute. Still, he wasn’t bothered by teasing at it.

He was good company, better than his taciturn uncle, who watched him as the candlemarks waned, with eyes that said too much and revealed too little.

So Stefen felt guilty, absently judging the talent of this unlikely new…what? Friend? He’d see if it lasted through the dark hours and into another day—but as the night wore on, he couldn’t help judging himself to be the better musician, like he knew he was better than the Herald, however little that was worth considering all the Herald’s other gifts, and better than any of the bards and bard trainees he’d heard out in the city.

It wasn’t just vanity, maybe. He could hear where the music faltered, where notes could have gone _better_. He could feel where the power that undercut it all should have gone and didn’t, always.

While Van and Medren took their turns, as one game became another, and when the hushed, base, envious thoughts intruded, he could comfort himself a little that he was more than holding his own and it was proof he didn’t need their precious school.

But while the tutors Dark had found to nurture and hone his skills in the north had been trained, talented musicians, they’d had no hint of the spark Stefen recognized in almost all of the bards, including himself, including the Herald. He couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to learn from teachers who had that, who could have helped him learn how to mold it, instead of having to figure it out on his own. What tricks had he never learned? What secrets did he still not know? There was a question to torment him.

At no point would Medren leave him long to stew in his own head though. His music was, if not perfect, damned, delightfully insistent.

Van got out a pair of wine flasks from the trunk, Medren made much of him ‘dipping into his stash,’ and the three of them passed the bottles between them, drinking like friends. He tried to pretend he didn’t notice the little tingle he felt, pressing his mouth to the lip of the bottle where he knew Van’s mouth had just been. He tried to pretend there wasn’t a part of him that fancied he could taste him. It was only that he was so close and real. Between the dreamerie and the nightmares he’d half convinced himself he couldn’t be.

Anyway, it was near dawn by then, they were all half asleep and bound to be prey to strange imaginings, couldn’t fault a man for that.

In fact, it was increasingly hard for Stefen to stay awake. If he hadn’t been so tired he wouldn’t have sung the song for Van again, at Medren’s urging. Flattery had always been his downfall, even when he knew it was false, and Medren was a master, with an insider’s perspective on how best to stroke another performer’s ego.

So he sang that one, and another he’d written but not played much yet, since he’d gone on his ill-thought-out crusade to cut dreamerie—and Dark—from his life. The last wasn’t even about Vanyel but Medren said he wanted to hear it anyway.

To thank him, Medren sang him one of his own, and he didn’t mean to, but without an instrument in his own hands Stefen nodded off halfway through.

He woke to Medren’s voice.

“—guess he doesn’t have to say what he thought of that. I know it needs polishing but I hadn’t thought it was that bad.”

He struggled to straighten from his slouch against the wall, already shaking his head. “No—it wasn’t—” Drunk with weariness, his tongue was slow and his words slurred. At least the bard had sounded amused rather than genuinely insulted.

“Hush,” Van said, warmth and affection like undercurrents of melody backing his words. “You have no one to blame but you, inviting yourself in when it was so late and staying so long.”

“You wound me, Uncle!” He didn’t sound wounded.

Stefen wrapped his arms around himself, chilled by his own isolation. Or just because he was so tired. “Sorry,” he muttered, near shivering with how much he meant it.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Medren said, misunderstanding. “Uncle Van is right—this time. It was a pleasure to meet you and I look forward to next time, but I shouldn’t have stayed so late. We will do this again though.”

It wasn’t a request, and Stefen wanted desperately for that to be true. He hadn’t even missed the dreamerie. He hadn’t worried at all about what he was supposed to do next, a slave without a master, not even the drug to command his days.

“Yes,” was all he managed. Cheerfully oblivious, Medren only laughed as he stood and in a moment he was gone entirely, Vanyel and Stefen alone in the room.

He must have dozed off again.

“To bed with you,” The Herald was saying softly, crouching in front of him, the instruments all put away somehow.

Stefen sighed. “Too tired,” he mumbled. He’d slept on plenty of floors, at least this one was relatively warm.

A huff of laughter. “All the more reason. Come on.”

Stefen blinked at him. Vanyel had extended his hand. He was barefoot, his shirt undone half down his chest, his sleeves rolled up. He looked ready for bed and if Stefen hadn’t been so tired—

He took a breath and took his hand, sleepiness receding even more when the Herald smiled at him.

_Like when Dark had smiled at him_ —he shoved the thought away, bracing himself against the wall to help the Herald get him to his feet.

He wasn’t steady; when he tried to take a step he tripped over himself and would have landed on his face if the Herald hadn’t caught him. He could have blamed it on the wine but he’d hardly had any. How much sleep had he actually managed over the last week though? Over the last month? Not nearly enough, and didn’t he know it.

It could be worth missing more. The Herald was solid, in spite of his slim frame, and although he wasn’t any taller he had no trouble taking Stefen’s weight, not even budging when he fell into him. He wasn’t guant like he’d been. Stefen knew he still looked like shite himself, but the Herald had made a nice recovery.

The linen of his shirt was soft, warm from his skin. When Stefen let himself rest against him his scent surrounded him, heady, woody, comforting. He burrowed his forehead into the hollow of the Herald’s neck, letting the world fall away.

He didn’t remember walking across the room but they must have, because the flash of fear as the Herald nudged him away was instantly eased when he realized the bed was right behind him. _Yes_.

He let his legs give out and landed on his arse with a little bounce. The blanket had already been pulled back. The sheet was cool. He trailed his hand down the Herald’s chest, watching his face for a reaction. Was that good? Was that how he liked to be touched? He didn’t seem—

“Shhh,” the Herald whispered, catching his hands, holding them between them. He had Dark’s face. Dark had had his. Stefen should be afraid, but on his best day Dark had never looked at him like this. “Go ahead.”

The Herald pressed his hands and Stefen understood he meant him to lie back. With a sigh he shut his eyes and obeyed, pulling his legs up onto the bed, careful to keep his feet off the sheets, down where they hadn’t been pulled over the blanket.

He opened his eyes again, blearily—gods, the pillows were soft, the sheets were soft, and it all smelled of soap and sun and _him_ —to watch the Herald carefully pull Stefen’s boots off. “Wha—?” he started, trying half-heartedly to lever himself back up.

The Herald shot him an amused look and gave a tug on the boot he was still wearing, just that small pull enough to keep Stefen off balance and on his back. “Relax—” he said, and finished pulling that boot off too.

Stefen let him, managing to keep his eyes open to watch the Herald set it by the other boot on the floor, next to his own. Something in his stomach fluttered, which was stupid. It wasn’t like they hadn’t fucked before, a world away, with death hanging over them. He swallowed and closed his eyes again at the memory. That place—everything that touched that place, that was touched by Dark’s shadow, was tainted—

Then a blanket was pulled up and over him and the Herald tucked him in, alone, in his own bed.

He blinked and frowned at him in confusion, his limbs too heavy to fight free of the loose blankets, but the Herald’s rueful smile was unwavering.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

He wanted to argue, but gods, he was so tired—


	6. Chapter 6

Stefen would never know where Van had slept that night; he was gone when he woke up. The day was well on, he hadn’t needed to check the window to know it, but he did anyway. He felt better than he had in a long time, and his fingers drummed absently at the coverlet as he pondered that.

Van had to have mucked about in his head at least a little. He’d slept so long, uninterrupted, and he had the vague impression of nightmares that had never quite manifested, little shadows kept at bay by _something_.

It was such a balm to his psyche to have made it through a few hours of genuine sleep though, and he was practical enough to choose not to dwell.

Instead he tossed the blanket back and sat up, out of bed, looking around the empty room. His boots were still on the floor at the foot of the bed, next to the Vanyel’s. But he supposed those were really Valdir’s boots anyway. He ran his hand down his face and scratched at his jaw. Another thing not to dwell on, not with hunger gnawing at his backbone.

The Herald had thought of that. There was a covered platter on the chest that he quickly discovered to be a plate of sliced fruit and two sausage rolls and he wolfed it all and wished there was more. A flask of mead had been left beside it at least, to wash it down, and he drank it dry while he wandered around, considering the room in the light of day.

There wasn’t much that was personal left out to mark it as anyone in particular’s, aside from the instrument shelves, and it still didn’t seem fitting for a man of Herald Vanyel’s position to live so simply, however comfortable and cozy it might also have been.

He finished the mead and set the flask beside the empty platter and sat down on the bed again to pull his boots back on.

Panicking when the door rattled, even when he saw it was only Van his heart didn’t quite settle. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was in trouble. _He’d done something bad, he always did._

“You’re awake.”

He forced a smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Van closed the door behind him, hesitating, staring. “I see you found the food.” He waved vaguely.

Stefen nodded. “Aye, and thanks again.”

“You don’t have to…”

“Thank you?” he finished for him, when Van didn’t.

That finally won a small smile in return.

He was always a handsome man, but when he smiled—well. If Stefen was the sort it would have made him weak at the knees. Anyway, he was still sitting down.

He exhaled sharply, reminding himself to breathe. “Didn’t mean to kick you out of your bed,” he said. The opposite had been his intention, in fact. They were supposed to have ended up there together.

Van shrugged, clearly ill at ease. “Medren’s already asked after you. Couldn’t even wait a day to hunt me down for pointed questions. He likes you.”

He’d have loved to know what some of those questions had been, and more, what the answers were, but he wasn’t fool enough to imagine Van would share either.

“Thought he was your lover, when he first walked in,” he confessed, shaking his head at himself to remember it.

“What?”

Van’s squawk only turned his reflection into a snicker. “Well he did shove in like he owned the place, and you weren’t exactly shoving him back out.”

“That doesn’t mean I—”

There was something off in his tone. Stefen cocked his head to stare at him. Definitely something there. He knew to chase after vulnerability when he stumbled on it, even if he hadn’t been looking, but he didn’t understand this one. His eyes narrowed.

“Should I still be worried? When your real guy comes in am I gonna have a fight on my hands?”

“No. There isn’t a ‘real’ anyone who would have that right.”

“Aaah, I get ya.” He yawned and stretched as if this was all casual talk, but he was mulling it over, picking at it. “Fancy free. A string of hearts from here to Karse, but none that can call you ‘his,’ yeah? That’s the way to do it.”

“Not quite.” Amusement then, and it colored his voice so prettily Stefen could have let himself be distracted if he was as easily distracted as he played. It was on the tip of his tongue to poke him about keeping faith with a kid decades dead, but he already knew it wasn’t that, either.

He turned on him, all his good mood at having finally caught a few hours of true rest gone sour. “It’s not my fault.”

The Herald blinked, surprised. “No—of course not.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not sleeping with anyone because of this thing between us.”

Van pulled a face, finding the balls to look annoyed. “I’m not sleeping with anyone because I don’t want to. There’s more to my life.”

A casual blow; there wasn’t more to Stefen’s, it was why he’d come and they both knew it. “And if you did?”

He crossed his arms, silver eyes gone cool as an unsheathed blade. “What do you want me to say?”

Stefen leaned forward, glaring. “This isn’t my fault.”

“It isn’t.”

“I don’t love you. That’s what this shite is supposed to mean, isn’t it? This _lifebond_ tripe? True love forever like you and your first, back in the day? That’s not this. I don’t love you.”

The Herald looked more taken aback than hurt and that was strangely worse. “You don’t have to love me,” he said gently. “I don’t expect it.”

Fuck his gentleness. His condescension. “What do you expect, then? What do you think this is?” He didn’t mean the thread of pleading that had slipped into his words. He didn’t give a fuck what the Herald wanted. It was only that he had magic, so he should understand this stupid magic _thing_ , and that he’d been through it before—

The Herald raked his hand through his hair and sighed. He glanced at Stefen, then away, then crossed the room to sit beside him on the bed.

In spite of himself Stefen leaned closer, waiting to hear what he’d say, waiting for something in his life to start making sense.

“A lifebond… it’s like the bond between a Herald and Companion.”

Stefen’s lips twisted. That didn’t help at all.

“And we say—the Heralds—we say that people are Chosen who are needed. _Gifts_ appear as they’re needed. In times of war we get Firestarters, Fetchers, Mages, combative Gifts. In times of peace, Empaths, Mind Speakers, diplomats, spies, and peacekeepers—”

Stefen could tell he’d been going over this idea, rehearsing these exact words, if only in his head. It wasn’t a good performance and he wasn’t interested.

“So, we’re a lifebond because Valdemar needed it? To save your kingdom you needed to be able to steal my song and maybe my life, so… the _gods_ put this thing in my head that says I have to belong to you?”

He didn’t need the bond to know how uncomfortable the Herald was. “You don’t belong to me.”

Fucking right!

“Nothing personal, yeah? Just the right sort of Gift at the right place and time—boom, kingdom saved, good job, now fuck off?”

The Herald flinched. _But he didn’t fucking argue_.

Stefen shot to his feet and grabbed his gittern case from the corner behind the door, fumbling at it first, but he got it. It wasn’t a candle in the daylight to anything on the Herald’s shelves but it was his.

He could take a hint. It wasn’t even that the Herald didn’t think he was good enough for him, he didn’t even think of him in terms that even involved—

He was just a tool, was he? A gods-given one— _hah!_ —but not even really rightfully a person.

Fuck _ing_ hells, the Herald really wasn’t any better than Dark.

He was still behind him, on the bed, and Stefen had his hand on the door—

“I didn’t mean that—Please, Stefen, I’m grateful!” the Herald’s voice was so low, so sincere. Dark couldn’t have matched him for fucking, pious sincerity. “You have no idea how much. If there’s anything I can do…”

To repay him. To _fucking_ pay him. Maybe he had just enough brain to catch on to how much he’d gone awry with his attempts to be comforting— _I don’t own you_ had been a good start, _thank the gods you made a half-decent weapon against my enemy_ had been a godsawful end—but he had enough wit or mercy in him to finally shut his bastard mouth while Stefen left.

 

* * *

 

He had long ago learned that you could get by being in places you shouldn’t just by keeping your head up and walking with purpose, and that got him off the palace grounds, through the now open gates, easier out than in anyway, and back to the city.

It was easy to walk with ‘purpose’ when fury made the ground seem to fly away under each angry stride. He felt like he could have walked back to Tides in a day.

What he wasn’t good at, in this frame of mind, was watching his surroundings. Haven was safe, wasn’t it? The kingdom’s capital, swarming with Heralds and guards.

_Nowhere_ was safe. He knew that. He knew better, but that arsehole, hypocrite Herald—

Stefen was caught by the neck, choked breathless, spun in a dizzying whirl, and slammed against the stone façade of some shop.

Parts of town you shouldn’t ever let your guard down, he knew that; he was a son of the damned streets, for however long he’d been away. Someone who knew where they were or had a few locals deep enough in their pocket could get away with damned near anything and no one would say one word about what happened to him. Not if he was filleted on the cobbles, long as they were quick enough or kept him quiet enough that the guards didn’t come by until it was done.

A knife pressed up under his jaw, icy cold along his throat, but point up, and his ears rang with the _pop_ of his skin puncturing at its tip, followed instantly by the warm bead of his welling blood against it.

“Don’t fight,” the man grunted into his ear, pressing Stefen back into the stone behind him, pinning him, so he could fumble a sack over his head before Stefen’d even got his breath back.

The knife left his throat so the bag could be pulled down, but he was shoved around and his hands were caught and bound behind him, good, secure knots he wouldn’t easily squirm free from, and the knife jabbed dangerously at his back.

He already knew it was sharp, it wouldn’t take that much effort to drive it up into him and he didn’t think it was by accident that it was angled to go for his heart. His captor grabbed a fistful of bag and hair, making his eyes tear in his dark, musty prison, jerking his head to one side so he could speak more directly into his ear, though even then his voice was muffled.

“I’m serious. Don’t struggle. Don’t try to call for help. You’ll be dead before anyone gets close to enough to touch me.”

Not doubting it, he didn’t try to respond. After a moment the body pinning his to the wall eased away and his captor grabbed his arm, curling the one that held the knife around his back to keep its point—and his—pertinent while he pulled him along the street.

Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck_. This wasn’t thievery. Even the most brutal cutthroat would have just stuck him or knocked his head and left him to bleed out.

One of Dark’s old enemies, free to act now that the sorcerer was dead? One of the Herald’s, who’d seen him running away from his room? Neither was likely, though the latter was slightly more probable considering where he was. But still, why?

He stumbled, but the large man walking him kept him going. Off balance with his arms twisted up behind him and his spine arching in instinctive resistance to the knife in his back. He knew they couldn’t be far from wherever he was being taken, his captor couldn’t have bought _that_ many people, so they’d cut through to somewhere more private or head inside quickly. No time to try anything, even if he was dumb enough to doubt the threat of that blade.

Sure enough he was out of the sunshine and walking somewhere considerably cooler in a only a few paces, ducked down an alley or side street—

Side street, by the length of it. He tried to keep his breathing shallow, quiet and steady in the enveloping sack, and count their paces to keep some sense of where he was being taken, in case there was any chance of it being useful information later.

They turned and went a bit longer, a narrow way, still stone-paved, but with small scattered obstacles like litter and trash. Drainage, he was betting, for storm water, since it didn’t smell bad enough to be a main drainage ditch for sewage.

He was already panting just to breathe past the pain where he’d been grabbed by the throat, and the strain of catching any air at all through the rough-woven hood. Embarrassing, muffled sounds escaped every time he stumbled, or his captor jerked too hard on his arm, or their pace dug the knife blade a little deeper against him.

May as well use what he had.

But he’d hardly managed the first humming note before the other man slammed a fist against the back of his head and let him fall forward for a moment, only catching him at the last by one of his wrists, turning his attempted song into a cry as his full weight fell on the unnatural twist of his shoulders and his knees hit the ground.

“ _Told you_ not to try anything,” his captor growled, keeping his arms at that painful angle for a moment longer. Stef curled forward as soon as he was allowed to, his stomach heaving as he tried to process the pain. Only slightly more carefully grabbed by his upper arm and jerked back to his feet, his captor pressed the knife back in its place and gave him a little shake. “Don’t do that again. Not a sound until I ask for it.”

No fool, he bit his lip until he tasted blood, keeping even the whimpers and grunts from escaping, as much so he wouldn’t be tempted as to appease his captor.

Another turn, but this time they were entering a building, through a door so narrow he felt his captor twist sideways to slide through. The door shut behind them, a clicking of locks, and the knife was finally pulled away, allowing him to breathe, leaving him to shudder with it.

For a moment he wobbled, blinded, deafened, hurting, unsupported. He’d always been that, though, hadn’t he? He swallowed and forced his shoulders straight, forced his aching, quivering knees to lock. He’d long known he would die on his knees someday, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t stand as long as he could.

“C’mon,” his captor grunted, and Stefen wrote off the note of regret he thought he heard in it as a trick of his panic and the bag covering his head. When the man grabbed his shoulder and pushed he started walking, even less sure of his footing, but striding forward as if he was fearless.

He stopped when the man squeezed, and continued more carefully when the man grumbled, “Stairs.”

They were steep, but his captor was patient enough now that they were off the street, letting him take his time to carefully feel for each step. It seemed to take an eternity and it was a relief he couldn’t have described to finally reach the bottom. Steering him by that hand on his shoulder, his captor led him to a chair and carefully lowered him into it, arranging his arms over and around the high back—which hurt for a moment but eased when he was sitting and allowed to rest his arms again. He felt another rope and a tugging on his bonds, recognizing he was being tied to the chair.

Subtly he shifted on it, trying to feel for how easy it would be to move—it wouldn’t be, it was solid and heavy and might well weigh as much as he did.

It was cold. His ears rang with expectant silence. He felt the hood bunching up atop his head an instant before it was pulled off.


	7. Chapter 7

He recognized the man who’d taken him as the one he’d met in the tavern that night he’d joined in the bard-song, and that wasn’t entirely surprising; he’d known the man was dangerous and the impression Stefen had gotten of his captor’s size and strength certainly fit his bulk.

The fact that he had at least one partner, who’d been watching all Stefen’s awkward toe-groping down the stairs and waiting for him to be seated and de-hooded wasn’t particularly surprising either. He didn’t know what was going on but there was clearly more to the little bards’ guardian than a general concern for local schoolkids.

The woman who sat in the chair across from his—not tied to it—had a friendly look to her. A common, simple, everyday sort of woman. Brown hair going gray, mild gray eyes, a bit chubby around the middle.

Dark had trained him not to trust friendly, if everything else in this situation hadn’t been enough to warn him off.

“Welcome,” the woman said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“Coulda sent a note around.”

She smiled, mildly. Stefen’s fingers worried his bonds, absently plucking out a tune the heavy ropes would never play.

“It looked like you had left—then you show up on the palace grounds, slipping through the gate like you’d had business there. What were you doing in the palace?”

_Trying to fuck and being rejected by the biggest hero in your kingdom?_

Mad bravado aside, since for all he knew this was because of Vanyel, he wasn’t inclined to try to use him as an alibi. He shrugged.

The bruiser from the tavern touched his shoulder again, cupping it, but gently, like he had for the last walk through the building and down the stairs. He leaned down, breathed in Stefen’s ear—

There was a _push_. He’d never felt such a _push_ , except maybe from Dark, and even then, that had been more of a _pull_ , a small, but clear distinction. He would have done it, he would have said anything they wanted… if he’d had any idea at all what the words actually meant. He recognized the language of Karse from a handful of songs he knew, but he didn’t speak it.

And it lasted, it lingered, that need, that drive, that desperation to obey, even after the words were spoken and spent and gone.

He shook his head. What the fuck was that? _What the fuck?_ He recognized the Gift, but this was a new, alien face on his oldest, only friend.

He felt the man and woman watching him while he struggled for composure, shaking, light-headed.

Before he could steady himself the man— _bard_ , gods, what sort of bard could do _this?_ —leaned down and _pushed_ again, this time in Rethwellani. Hardornan then. Another language, another. Stefen knew none of them and each one left an unfulfilled yearning that only grew as the bard lost patience and sped up, slipping from language to dialect to language like Stefen might have slipped between songs, and he couldn’t be fooled, every one was a performance, every spoken syllable was backed by the pulsing heart of music.

The woman watched him, chin up, staring down her nose, eyes narrowed. He could have hated her, them, but the music, the _push_ —what the fuck was this?

Finally, street cant—thick, like highborns couldn’t even recognize as their mother tongue.

“My name is Stefen and I don’t work for anyone!”

Everything went silent except for him, breath rasping loud as if he’d run three miles and climbed a tree to shout it at them.

The bard straightened and let go of his shoulder. The woman frowned, obviously not happy with his answer.

“Stefen from where?” she asked.

“Tides.”

“And before that?”

“Before that, nowhere. Who knows? It’s where I was raised. If I lived anywhere before there, your guess is as good as mine.”

“Who trained you? If you’re from Tides, why didn’t you train at the collegium?” the bard demanded.

“Wasn’t invited,” he sneered, before he could stop himself.

Not bothering to acknowledge that, the bard walked over and took the seat next to the woman. He pointed at him, sternly. “Don’t try anything. I’m still more than close enough to stop you.”

He exhaled heavily, still shaken. “Don’t know what you expect. I can’t do anything like _that_ ,” he muttered, trying to hide his envy. Could all the bards out of Valdemar’s collegium do that? Those kids wandering the streets? Medren?

The bard didn’t smile but a corner of his lips twitched like he might’ve wanted to.

Instead he crossed his arms and stretched out his legs and only with the two side-by-side for comparison did Stefen realize how slight the woman was, hardly more than the size of a child, next to the brutish bard.

She smiled, reasonable and friendly, though Stefen thought it was a little late to stick to that line. “Perhaps we should start again, Stefen. My name is Beren; this is Osaba. We’re just trying to make sure you aren’t here to cause trouble in our capitol. If you answer our questions honestly we’ll get this all quickly squared away and you can be off. No need for fuss. We’re all friends here.”

“Then why am I still tied to a chair?”

Beren nodded. “Good point. Osaba?”

He stiffened when the bard stood and approached him again but the man just bent down behind him and loosed his bonds, not touching him anywhere else.

Stefen sighed with relief, immediately rolling his shoulders forward, braced for the pain as circulation picked up in his arms. His sigh turned into a hiss through gritted teeth, but it wasn’t too bad. Dark had played rougher than that, and for longer. Osaba returned to his chair and Stefen flexed his fingers and stretched his arms, eyeing them both.

 

* * *

 

The interrogation went on for a few candlemarks, and maybe Beren had been telling the truth and it could have gone faster and been done if Stefen hadn’t been so tight-lipped, but he never had been a man for the easy way, and certainly not for someone else’s ease.

He’d been visiting in the palace, it was why he’d come to Haven, he told them. Wasn’t none of their damned business who, or why he’d taken so long to make that last leg, he wasn’t a fucking spy.

Though it had been a bit of relief to finally catch on that’s what they’d been thinking. Of all stupid, maggot-brained ideas.

He told them his training had been arranged by his patron in the north. When they pressed him for why he hadn’t ended up in the capitol anyway he eventually admitted his Master would never have let him go and he hadn’t had the freedom to take off because he’d been sold to him. He left out Rendan and his men, they hadn’t mattered.

He fancied the tone of the questions changed a little. If these were the sort he was starting to believe they were they’d carry a bit of guilt for that, a boy being sold into a situation that wouldn’t free him even to chase a talent like they kept dancing around him having. Under _their_ noses, he was pretty sure. Herald or guard, Beren was one or the other; he was stupid for not having smelled it sooner. Nevermind that Tides wasn’t Haven, some folk had a need to take on responsibility for the world.

And what had happened to his Master? How had he been freed to go visiting at the capitol now?

“I killed him,” he said, hard-eyed, not caring what they thought.

He had; though he hadn’t said it aloud before. But if the Herald thought he was a weapon, didn’t he deserve to own it, too? He didn’t ask for anything for his part in it, except being able to say he’d done it: Dark was dead because of him.

He leaned back a little in his chair.

“And then?”

He shrugged, tired. “Went back to Tides. Where else was I gonna go?”

“So after murdering your ‘Master,’ you spent the last several months in Tides until you decided to visit your… ah, _friend_ , who works in the palace?” There was no judgment in Beren’s tone, as if her choice of words wasn’t telling enough.

“That’s the shape of it, yeah.”

“And if we send word to Tides, we’ll find people who will corroborate your story?”

Stefen nodded. Damn though, if they were going to hold on to him until that, it could be days before they were done with him. He wouldn’t name anyone but if they asked around there were enough people who’d vouch for him. Mother Caenis, if no one else. Brusi probably. And hells, any bed they dug up for him probably wouldn’t be the worst place he’d slept, either. What was a few days to him?

“And where could we send word to verify your stay in the ‘north?’”

He flinched. The woman was a fucking bulldog, for all her pretense of sympathy.

Osaba’s eyes suddenly widened and he straightened in his seat. It was subtle, but Stefen had been watching them as close as they’d been watching him. The bard’s sudden animation made him nervous. Beren had caught it too, and she stopped pressing.

“You’re the bard they found with Herald Vanyel,” he said, soft.

Stefen shifted, trying not to visibly react. Put that way it sounded like something dirty. ‘Found with him’ like they’d been spotted rutting in public, or on the sly, when one was married. Some would always put it that way when it was two of the same, though. It didn’t fit the situation, that was the reason he fumbled his mask.

Beren’s face changed, truly, and for the first time Stefen saw a glimpse of the real woman, but he knew it was at the cost of his own thin disguise. “At Crookback Pass?” She glanced at Osaba, but Osaba was still staring Stefen down.

“Aren’t you? They said you were red-haired. A Valdemar lad from down south.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Osaba leaned forward, eyes suddenly gentling. “You wrote that song too, the one that’s going around? It’s damned good.”

He huffed and gave up, looking away, knowing the avoidance was answer enough, if they believed it. That damned song.

The bard stood and nodded at Beren. “We need to talk.”

Beren, unlike Stefen, already had her face back in order, but she followed the tall bard anyway. Stefen stayed where he was. He heard them—mostly Osaba—tromping up the stairs and he heard the door at the top landing open and close.

He exhaled and wiped at his face. Fucking god-cursed, he was. Bad enough when they’d thought he was a spy, but now? He wouldn’t ever have mentioned Dark, not ever, but they _knew_. How much they actually knew, and how much they just thought, didn’t really matter. Stefen’s song had gone before the story mostly, but word had spread of the truth of it, even to the gutters of Tides.

Herald Vanyel, living legend, standing alone against a dark mage from the north and his army of men and fel-beasts. But the stories, like the song, didn’t make mention of Stefen.

If they’d heard of him, they hadn’t heard it _from_ him, so who’d carried the tale? Not the Herald, not Van, who was more tight-lipped even than Stefen was. If it had come from the other Heralds, and the guard, and the army that had gathered at the border, mostly too late, then what had they been told?

He hadn’t won any favor at the border before he’d run off.

They didn’t talk long, Osaba was back soon, his steps slower down the stairs but just as heavy. Stefen watched warily as the larger man grabbed his chair pulled it closer before he sat down.

“This isn’t a trick, is it? We’ll find out.”

Stefen snorted. Why, of all lives, would he pretend to this one? Why would anyone pretend to this one?

“It was Herald Vanyel you were visiting in the palace.”

He rolled his eyes. An easy guess but they couldn’t make him say it. Unless Osaba commanded him again, like he had before, running through all those languages, trying to force him to acknowledge his real one, to admit ‘who he worked for.’

He looked back at the bard again.

The man shook his head, perplexed. “Why were you following the kids all those nights?”

Kids? His age or a few years younger. “I liked listening to the music. I’d never heard anything like it before. All of them together, the way they play… the games…” He trailed off, startled by his own honesty. Osaba should understand, or maybe he couldn’t. He’d’ve been surrounded by it his whole life, like those _kids_ , like Medren, hells, like the Herald. This was their world.

Osaba sighed and slouched, resting his hands over his stomach, suddenly looking tired. “I took you for a hopeful,” he said. “I only kept watching out because you never made any tries to talk to anyone, or to get to the collegium.”

“For that I get nabbed?” he complained.

Osaba sighed again. “You were too good to be a hopeful, I knew it as soon as I heard you. What was I supposed to think? You showing up with that much power, that much skill, and polished and not local? Lurking around Haven like a sullen little shadow, but moving through it like you knew the city?”

Stefen glared at him. He could have repeated himself but he knew he didn’t need to.

Osaba made a face and crossed his arms, muscles bulging. “Fine. Yeah, for that you get nabbed. What do you want, an apology? I’d do it all over in the same circumstance; you’re suspicious as fuck.”

Stefen snorted again and crossed his own arms, noticing too late that he’d mirrored the man across from him and too proud then to make a point of undoing it. “I just sing is all,” he said. “Play a little. Hells, did you look at my gittern?” he gestured to where the case had been laid on the floor by Beren’s chair. It was a relief that it was probably still whole and still with him but it wouldn’t have been a loss to the world if Osaba had let it smash on the street. “What sort of threat do you gits think I would be?”

The man’s eyes widened again and he sat back in his chair. “Are you serious? As little as I heard of your voice, I know—”

“What?” Stefen asked, when he didn’t continue.

He stared at him until Stefen shifted uncomfortably.

Stefen cleared his throat. “I can’t do what you did before. Sure, I can shove emotions around a little, make someone sleepy, make ‘m less, but… that’s not like what you did.”

“Isn’t it?”

He shrank a little.

“Your master didn’t have you train with anyone gifted, did he?”

At that his chin went up, and his walls with it. “So?”

“So—”

The door at the top of the stairs opened and Stefen shut his eyes, freezing, knowing without looking exactly who had just entered.

“Stefen?”

_Vanyel_.


	8. Chapter 8

“Herald Vanyel!” Osaba shot to his feet. He didn’t have to say anything else, the awe was plain in his voice.

Stefen fought back a groan. Beren had actually done it. She’d been so set on checking Stefen’s story—or theirs, really; Stefen himself hadn’t verbally admitted anything—that she’d sent word to Herald-hero Vanyel Ashkevron.

Like their recent parting hadn’t been humiliating enough.

He wouldn’t look.

Van took the stairs two at a time and when he strode into view, cloak swirling dramatically behind him, Stefen had to give him credit for knowing how to make an entrance.

His expression was grave, tight-lipped, a furrow between his brows. When he realized Stefen was watching him his face flashed guilt for a fraction of an instant, but then then his gaze slid from Stefen to Osaba and back, hardening.

“Are you well?” There was a cool edge of menace in his voice that Stefen found interesting, but he really wasn’t any more keen on sharing now than he’d been before. Less, if anything.

He held his arms wide, putting himself on display. “’Course!” He didn’t try to sound remotely sincere. There was nothing he wanted to say, but much that he might’ve, if Osaba hadn’t been there. So, thank the gods for Osaba.

—who didn’t know Van, or he wouldn’t be quite so starry eyed, but Beren had to be connected to him somehow or she’d never have dared to directly contact the great Herald Vanyel. And she had to have contacted him fairly directly or he couldn’t be here already, pulled from some deadly important business to the kingdom, Stefen had no doubt.

He figured he should try to look grateful, but he wasn’t, and fuck that anyway.

This thing made sense actually, him being here, so quick and ready and accessible on Beren’s word. He didn’t dress up like Valdir for fun. Stefen wasn’t sure a man like him would do anything for fun. Clean his modest little room or hand-wash his pretty whites, maybe. 

_—collect the most beautiful musical instruments—_

“I’m sorry. We had to be sure…” Osaba near stuttered, falling silent instantly at Van’s upraised hand. It was a very different power from what Dark had wielded but it got him much the same results.

“Go. Please.”

Osaba nodded once, more of a small bow, and then was gone back up the stairs.

It was quiet again when the door closed behind him. Stefen still didn’t know what the Herald expected from him. Damned if he’d ask again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Aren’t you always?” he said, without heat, but the Herald flinched anyway.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like you’re not…”

“Not what?” Would he say it? Any of the words that belonged at the end of that sentence? Special. Important. Mine, even. Not that he wanted to be his. He didn’t want to be anybody’s anymore.

“I’m glad you’re getting off dreamerie,” Van said instead.

Stefen had forgotten he’d even told him that. “It’s not for you.”

“I know…”

_I’m doing it in spite of you. In spite of your face in my nightmares._ He suddenly shivered and rubbed at his arms. This whole, stupid fiasco was no more than he deserved for having chased the Herald to Haven in the first place. Had he thought he’d find answers here? He should’ve known better by now; he didn’t believe in answers, not for most folk, only the loudest or prettiest lies. He didn’t need the Herald for that, he could damned well make up his own.

“I don’t expect you to be faithful,” he suddenly said, and it took Stefen a moment to even understand what he meant.

He felt his heart pitch and then his blood start to steam when he got it. He really meant to continue the conversation? “Yeah? Generous of you.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

He had the eyes of a man who knew he should stop talking and couldn’t. Like Osaba had hit him up on his way out and commanded him to make as big an arse of himself as possible.

“I just thought you should know. You don’t have to—you aren’t obligated to… You don’t owe me that. Or anything.”

“You don’t say?” He stood.

The Herald fell back a step but the fucker wouldn’t stop talking. “I mean, just because I am—doesn’t mean _you_ can’t—”

An unbearable bastard. A pitiful, unbearable bastard. “—can’t fuck my way from one end of the kingdom to the other? And keep going if I feel like? Oh, I know I can. There’s plenty wouldn’t turn down what you have.”

“I’m not—”

“Shut up!” He finally broke. “Don’t matter to me what you do or how you justify it, yeah? None of my business, so thanks and no thanks for your opinion. And that goes both ways. I’m sorry I stuck my nose into yours coming here, I won’t do that again.”

“Stefen…”

It was a bitter thing, his name on the Herald’s lips. Such a sweet music in it, such a bitter emptiness it left in him.

He shook his head and pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to grab my gittern and head out—as long as your friends upstairs will let me?”

Van nodded, mute.

“Good.” Gods so much more to say, a waterfall of words in his head.

None of them, he would give him none of them. The Herald wasn’t worth another one.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t look at Beren or Osaba, who’d fallen silent when he’d come through the door and didn’t try to stop him from leaving, or even speak to him again.

He couldn’t shake the watched, hunted feeling though, even when he’d made it back to a real street. He’d felt it before they’d grabbed him and it wasn’t likely to lessen now. Better to leave Haven and be grateful he had the freedom.

Another difference between the Herald and Dark: as far as the Herald was concerned Stefen’d served his purpose and he didn’t care what he got up to anymore, aside from his guilt.

Had _Stefen_ asked for that?

He shook his head at the stupidity, grabbing at the strap of his gittern case so he could pick up his pace without it bouncing off. He wouldn’t spend another night in Haven but he had to hit it if he was going to reach somewhere else to stay before nightfall.

 

* * *

 

His ire carried him a day and a half, long enough to get him back to Tides, to the temple, to Mother Caenis and the little ones.

It couldn’t keep him going through them not needing him anymore, but they didn’t.

Mother Caenis had them now. Rumor had spread to all corners of the food to be had at the temples for a bit of sitting through lessons, a bit of chores. Easy work for the pay of a full belly when there weren’t many places young ones their size could get the same, including in their homes, those that had them.

He felt a shirker going back to his monk’s cell as if they still needed him, though the priestess and her sisters welcomed him; the mother with open relief he’d come back at all. They treated him like one of the little ones—not so different from how the Herald did.

So he hid at The Dawn’s Eyes every day—aside from his chores, he could at least give them that, simple as they were—which thrilled Brusi the tavernkeeper to no end, and must not have sat wrong with his partner Arnie in the kitchen, since the food they turned out for him was never less than top notch, even for two solid weeks of his sorry self haunting them.

There was never anything better than an appreciative audience, and no question the audiences of the Dawn’s Eyes could afford to show their appreciation better than the ones out on the street corners, but there was more to life than pennies in a jar and every performance had to end eventually.

Exactly what more he was supposed to find though, that’s what he was having trouble pinning down.

No Dark to serve. No Herald to serve. He found himself craving the dreamerie again just for boredom’s sake, though he wasn’t fool enough to give in on that case either, now that the need had dulled enough to let him sleep at least a few hours a night. And he wasn’t honestly sure that the nightmares he still had were from the dreamerie at all. He’d started on it to forget, hadn’t he? Though through the years it seemed that might have been the only memory he’d managed to shake, that the nightmares were older than the addiction.

He was done with it, damned if he wasn’t.

But what was he supposed to replace it with?

 

* * *

 

Of a night, he’d often wander over to The Between, since The Dawn’s Eyes kept respectable hours while The Between could hardly be mentioned in the same breath as respectable anything. Sour beer and a few other bodies in the room, The Between could give him that much and when that was all he needed, it was good enough.

Nightmares that weren’t from kicking dreamerie were still nightmares and he still didn’t like sitting alone with them.

There were only a few times he’d had to turn away because he’d caught whiff of something he wasn’t willing to bow down to again. It did make him cautious about entering, making it worth always pausing a few breaths in the door to check the clarity of the air.

Good for him, that night, because he recognized the man at the far end of the small room before he stumbled unthinkingly into him. Leaned forward over the bar itself, good luck to him peeling free, sticky as it always was; he had his head low, talking earnestly with an equally earnest Keep, and didn’t Stefen feel like a fool, shaken to his boots as he quietly slipped back out again, hoping neither had noticed him.

Stupid, unlikely, but so much of life was, wasn’t it? You just didn’t question what had always been, or the people who’d always been there, even before he’d gone north. He’d thought Haven was so different for the Heralds and guardsmen in the slums, swanning about like their disguises were even good, so self-righteous that he was on to them, it never had occurred to him to look for their like closer to home.

Fucking _Keep_.

A guard, or with them, he’d have to be. If there was one of those big white horses hiding about, he’d have been outed ages before. Stefen could understand it so clearly now, suddenly seeing him as a man who could be more than he’d ‘always’ been. And his odd mornings at the temple… was someone there a part of it? Mother Caenis?

She was too new; if she was in, she’d replaced someone else. Or maybe it was just a place to meet up. Or maybe he just went to pray, like people joked. If he was a guard maybe he did have a conscience he wanted to clear from time to time.

“Oi!”

And fucking Osaba.

Stefen sped up at the soft shout from behind him. Probably little hope he’d just leave be, it looked concerningly like he’d come from Haven to talk to him.

“Oi! Wait!” the fact that he was so carefully modulating his volume was concerning too. Not afraid of getting Stefen’s attention, but not necessarily looking to get anyone else’s. At least he didn’t put any of that _push_ into it.

He could have kept going, but he swallowed and paused. Osaba’d only keep chasing him, he’d thought that about him before and forgotten it, to his detriment.

If you can’t run you square up to fight, sometimes just showing you were willing was enough. He turned on his heel and waited.

Osaba wore a friendly enough expression, not like when he’d taken him, or when they’d been interrogating him. “Stefen. Good to see you looking well.” He slowed to a stop as he neared him.

Stefen crossed his arms. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s your friend?” _And who sent you? Her or Vanyel?_

Osaba shrugged, eyes flicking around them. It wasn’t really dark on this side of town, even this time of night: the lights from the big houses illuminated the streets around them, but he didn’t seem to find that comforting. “Homebody. She don’t leave her neck, much.”

He slipped sometimes, sounding like he was more Stefen’s ilk than Van or Beren’s.

“And you? What has you on my step, hey? Haven’t seen you here before.”

He shrugged again, staring at him suddenly like there was something he wanted to say. “I’ve been here before, plenty. You weren’t around then, I think.”

_Ah._ He wondered if that was true. And if it was, if he would have figured it out, and pinned Keep too, if he’d been left to finish his growing here.

“There was something I wanted to talk about before. Didn’t get the chance.” He pointed his thumb. “Wanna go back and sit? Wet yer whistle. Chat it up?”

He wasn’t here for Vanyel. Not that that would have made a difference, Stefen was glad to be done with that fucked-up tangle of power and piety. “No.”

“Ah—please?”

It was so unexpected, in tone as much as anything else, it startled a laugh from him, and had him shaking his head at himself to see Osaba’s sly, answering grin and know he’d won that one.

Damn. He’d have to listen, he already knew the man wouldn’t stop hounding him, he just wasn’t the sort. Didn’t mean Stefen’d come easy though—or cheap.

Osaba cocked his head at Stefen’s sudden, thin smile.

“I’ll talk. Or listen, if that’s your game. Neutral ground, though. Get us a room.” He nodded his chin at the nearest window and Osaba’s eyes widened a little as he understood.

A million expressions crossed his face, writ in the dirty orange glow of the big house lights. Stefen waited.

Osaba nodded.

 

* * *

 

They went in together, not to the same one he’d visited with that noble nearly a month before, and this time he stayed close. He didn’t touch him, but he was always near enough he could have, leaving no doubt they were together as Osaba paid out for a few hours in an upstairs room.

He’d have some explaining to do for his local persona and depending on who he rubbed shoulders with he might have some trouble in a few quarters. Which he was clearly accepting, and it left Stefen wondering if he should feel flattered that Osaba thought talking to him was worth it.

Untroubled by the ghosts that had haunted him last time he’d stepped into one of those rooms, Stefen strutted across the floor and threw himself down on the bed, stretching out with his gittern case at his side and his arms folded under the pillow. He was comfortable in his small victory, not even bothered when Osaba looked at him and smiled, shaking his head.

A small victory was better than none at all.

“So?” he asked, ready to listen, or at least to let him start his pitch.

“So…” Osaba drawled, dragging the one, heavy chair in the room nearer to the bed so he could sit down and be closer for their talk. “—did you know I’m not a bard?”

Despite himself, Stefen eyed him with genuine curiosity.

“Right?” Osaba said. “But I can’t hold a note, I’m shite with any instrument I’ve ever touched, and I can’t compose music or lyrics worth a damn; have to have two of the three to really qualify, definitely to get the crown’s sponsorship to the collegium and there was no chance of me paying my own way at your age.” He waited, but when Stefen didn’t say anything he continued. “But I’ve got the Gift, right? You heard it?”

_Felt it. Could almost feel it_ still _._

“Yeah, but see, bards aren’t just people who talk, bards are about music, and that’s not me. That’s not anything I can do, even if I have the Gift. To be honest, it’s not even something I’m over-interested in. Tin ear, you see?”

Every word only made it worse. Stefen felt vaguely sick and had gone from propping up his head behind the pillow to cradling his stomach.

Osaba laughed. “Yeah, I get that look a lot around your sort. No harm. Only more proof I’m not one of you. I ended up where I belong.”

“Which is…?”

Osaba leaned back in his chair. “Which is in a position to help you out. Outsider-insider perspective. It’s not a bad place to be.”

“How?”

Because _that_ he understood. Outsider-Insider, that had always been him.

“I can teach you.”

Plain, bold words, and Stefen understood he didn’t just mean the Gift, though thinking back, he’d alluded to that before. How, for all Dark’s tutors, he’d kept him away from anyone who might have taught him more about his actual Gift.

“What’s your price?”

Coy, Osaba shrugged again. “It’s in the Circle’s best interests. The Bardic Circle, I mean. You’re too strong to not know what you have, and how to control it. To not even understand how dangerous it is.”

He snorted, but that sort of made sense. Osaba would report on him to his masters at the capitol, fair enough.

“Why not admit me to the collegium, then?”

“Would you come?”

_—gods, no!—_

Osaba nodded. “You’re older than most of them there. And wilder than the older ones, if you don’t mind me saying. Talking about bards, that’s saying a lot, by the way. And why should you? You don’t need classmates, you just need a teacher. And you don’t need to learn how to play or compose or sing, you know all that, you only need someone who can fill you in on your Gift. I can do that much, and the Circle gave me permission. Charged me, really. But consider this your gilded invitation if you’d rather go that way.”

He shook his head.

Still, it could have been nice… but Osaba was right. He wouldn’t have had the patience to sit through someone telling him how to sing his songs, he’d trained hard already under a much crueler master, and done his time in far more dangerous testing grounds. And he still wasn’t fool enough to think that Osaba was only offering to teach him about the Bardic Gift.

“And when I’m trained?” he persisted.

For a long moment Osaba just looked at him, and there was something sad in it. “They only ask for loyalty,” he said, and Stefen knew he was lying. “They just want to know where all true sons of Valdemar stand.” That last part was closer to the truth.

His gaze drifted to the rough wooden beams above him while he considered what was being offered and what wasn’t. There were heavy hooks inset in several places along the old, stained wood of the ceiling.

Nothing was free. Valdemar would want to be paid for any favor it offered him.

He looked back to Osaba, big, raw-boned, graceless. What he did with his voice though, it was something Stefen could feel, just out of his reach but so close he could almost brush against it. He’d figure it out on his own, he didn’t doubt it, now that he knew it was possible, but he would always wonder how much he still didn’t know. Osaba could tell him. He could feel how much the man wanted to.  

He’d just have to make sure Valdemar gave him enough to justify the price they’d ask.


End file.
